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Canon 50D and High Tone Priority and Auto Light Optimizer

Ok I am off on another trip in just over a week to Egypt, Jordan and Syria. Now I have usually taken in raw but it just gets too much when I get back to deal with all the space and processing. I am a bit of a novice with in camera jpeg. Now I am panicking after really checking out the menus that relate to jpeg. What are the best settings? Should I turn off the Auto Light Optimizer - not really sure what the benefit of this is. I can understand the benefit of the high tone priority in some situations ie backlight scenes - not sure if it makes much difference if I just leave it on. Next is exposure safety shift - heck why haven't I noticed any of this in the last 2 years!
My kids just snap and shoot on their high end point and shoots and generally get great shots - they are laughing at me now trying to work all this out.
Maybe I should just do raw! Anyway as always, I would love input from the site members.

Hi,
i also have a 50D and also haven't taken much notice of those options.
I have the light optimiser off. Safety shift on as this lets the camera change exposure at the last second if something changes, though i dont think it every really happens. Tone priority off.
I shoot in raw+jpeg, though i dont know why i bother with the jpeg 99% of the time.
But i do have Lightroom and it makes managing and adjusting the RAW photos just all too easy and quick.

The safety shift works very well. Basically it looks at what you have selected and if the exposure isn't right it will take over. For example say you are shooting on shutter priority (Tv) and you are indoors in poor light and you select 1/500 of a second. The camera will try and select a suitable aperture to achieve exposure in this case f2.8 or whatever the biggest is for the lens you have. You will likely notice that the camera will show this value as a flashing value meaning that it doesn't think that will result in a good enough exposure. So safety shift takes over and will increase your shutter speed to whatever it needs to achieve correct exposure, ie 1/50 second. So it can be good, but if you are trying to achieve something different (ie purposely looking for fast shutter, or manual flash etc) you should turn it off.

The others (ALO or Highlight priority) I am less familiar with, they are more subtle adjustments to how the camera utilises its dynamic range to capture details.

Mic has it down pat in the previous post, tell you what, invest in some big fast Sandisk CF cards, it will bust your Mastercard but if you buy multiple ones and shoot RAW+JPEG, slows the camera a bit but pays dividends years later.
Turn most of the junk features off and take more frames
Richard

I've been wrong before!!Happy to have constructive criticism though.Gear used Canon 50D, 7D & 5DMkII plus expensive things hanging off their fronts and of course a "nifty fifty".

Hi, Some great info that was handed to me when I brought my 50D this year, if you search under the sponsors banner, Fishpond, Magic Lantern Books, Canon 50D, This is a manual and also DVD, This allows you to sit with camera in hand and play, while watching a DVD, very easy to follow and incredibably informative, Have put several AP members onto this and also the 7D users. Well worth the $30 -$40 buck delivered, I think they still offer free delivery this month so it may be cheaper and also AP gets a sponsor kickback, TWO wins.